What is Dublin trying to hide on IRA/Garda collusion?
01 June 2011
In a statement the North Antrim MLA said:-
“The murder of Harry Breen and Tom Buchanan has always raised deep suspicions of sinister collusion between the IRA and Garda officers in Dundalk station, with suggestions that one officer in particular was on the payroll of the IRA. The timing of the deaths raised their own suspicions in that a possible cross-border operation against Slab Murphy was said to be linked to the series of visits by senior RUC personnel across the border. The identity of those on the IRA killing gang also carries its own intrigue.
“In Northern Ireland we’ve seen several expensive Inquiries into all sorts of allegations and incidents. None of them have been time limited or restricted by cost. Yet when the work of the one such Inquiry in Dublin is about to go public, suddenly the Republic’s Minister of Justice seeks to cripple it by impossible time and cost constraints. What is Dublin trying to hide?
“Such political interference is deeply troubling. When the solicitor for Harry Breen says he fears a ‘cinderella tribunal’, then it is time to ask just what is going on? What staff has this Tribunal, will it have the resources to do the job, for example, with several potential witnesses in GB and Northern Ireland, and some needing to give evidence by video link, will the Tribunal have the resources and facilities to do that? Will artificial time constraints mean its pursuit of the truth will be truncated and thwarted?
“It seems to me this is the real agenda lying behind Alan Shatter’s intolerable interference with Judge Smithwick’s Inquiry.
“In view of the serious situation which is evolving and the resulting threat to the unearthing of the uncomfortable truth, I intend tabling a Priority Written Question to the First Minister asking what protest his office has made to Dublin over this intolerable meddling by the Republic’s government in the due process of public inquiry into collusion between the Garda and the IRA.”
“Getting the truth on this issue is an imperative. It must not be compromised.”
